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The London region unemployment rate rose to 8.0% last month up from 7.9% in February.

A Statistics Canada report released Friday morning showed it was a fairly flat month. The increase in unemployment in London-St. Thomas was due to a slight increase of about 100 people in the labor force, reversing a trend in recent months. But the number of people employed fell by about 100.

Unemployment in the London St. Thomas has generally declined over the past year, but the drop was largely due to a shrinking labour force as more people gave up looking work and were not counted as unemployed by Statistics Canada.

Compared to a year ago, the labour force in London-St. Thomas has shrunk by 9,400 to 261,700 and the number of people employed has fallen from 5,400 to 240,800.

London is not faring as well Kitchener -Waterloo with an unemployment rate of 6.5%, Windsor 7.2%, and Hamilton 5.9%, but is doing better than Toronto at 8.3%, Montreal 8.1% and St. Catharines 8.5%.

Across Canada the unemployment was also fairly flat in February. The jobless rate held steady at 7%, exactly the same as year ago.

Total employment fell by 7,000 despite expectations of an increase in jobs.

"There is little doubt that underlying trends are cooling, with job totals up a modest 0.5% from a year ago and the unemployment rate seemingly stuck at 7.0%," said BMO chief economist Douglas Porter.

Alberta was the big winner in February, gaining 18,800 jobs while employment in Quebec fell by 25,500 just as the province is heading into an election.

The Ontario rate also held steady at 7.5%. with a slight gain in jobs.

The U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs last month, a better result than economists had expected.

But the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7%, from 6.6% as more Americans joined the labor force.